The present invention relates to charge-coupled devices (CCDs), and more particularly to a light shield for a back-side thinned CCD that attenuates incident light at the surface of the CCD when the CCD is used as part of an opto-electric converter such as a streak tube.
In an opto-electric converter, such as a streak tube designed to digitize high bandwidth optical pulses, an optical signal is converted into an electron signal by directing the optical signal onto a photocathode which emits electrons. These electrons are accelerated toward and swept across the surface of an electron sensitive CCD. The photocathode is partially transmissive to the incident optical signal so that a fraction of the optical energy is passed through to the CCD. This spurious light signal generates in the CCD an undesired background signal.
What is desired is a light shield for the CCD that is opaque to the spurious light signal while being transmissive to the electron signal to eliminate the undesired background signal at the output of the CCD.